I’m back from the hospital and finally ready to write. One thing that has come right back to me is forgetting my brilliant idea of what to write. Somehow starting like this seems very me. My energy is low but my built-up demand is high for writing is high. These thoughts have to find a way from my head into yours.
I’m going into quite a bit of detail of my surgery. I won’t get graphic. I’m doing this because it’s something that most people aren’t familiar with but should be. There’s a decent chance that you are someone you care about will go through something similar. Not only that but it’s cool. It’s amazing what modern medicine can do.
I’ve had abdominal hernias for just about the same time I haven’t had health insurance, at least 12 years. You might have noticed the lump on the right side of my abdomen. These hernias are for the most part the result of my two major abdominal surgeries, the removal of my gall bladder and the resection of 45 cm of my small intestine. When I had the resection I was given an ileostomy; my digestive system was short circuited and my intestines emptied into a bag on my side. I had a third surgery to reverse the ostomy.
During all that surgery many nerves got cut. Enough so to disconnect some of my abdominal muscles from the nervous system. Without the nerve signals, they weren’t used and atrophied. A big part of their job is holding my guts in. With them weakened my intestines and fat forced their way through to just under the skin. That was the lump you saw.
When I went to the surgeon, I was aware of just one big hernia, the lump. He immediately felt a second one next to it. I went for an MRI and that found three more, five in total. Three in front of my abdomen and two inguinal hernias. When a man gets a hernia, that’s what it usually is. That’s down in your groin. I had two repaired 20 years ago. Even without laparoscopy it was a simple procedure. It was supposed to be outpatient but I ended up spending one in the hospital waiting for my urinary system to wake up from the anesthesia. It was not a big deal at all. Two days later I went off the pain meds so I could drive out on Long Island to see Dave’s True Story.
This procedure was no laparoscopic but robotic. That’s similar but cooler. Small incisions are made and robotic tubes are sent into me to do whatever slicing and dicing need to be done, removed material, and give the surgeon a view of what’s going on. Once in the surgeon pushes my guts back in my abdominal cavity, where they belong, and holds them in with meshes. When I had my inguinal hernias I did not get meshes, I got plugs, and they shifted out of place. I had no idea, I thought it was meshing. My surgeon did not do a good job of communicating. I take a lot of interest in the specifics of my surgery. If he had told me I would have remembered. That’s the one surgeon I don’t remember at all. I said, “he” but it could have been “she.”
When I first considered the surgery I thought the experience would be more like the major abdominal surgeries. I knew how extensive the damage was and figure there would be a lot of cutting of my abdominal wall with the pain and difficulties that come with it. My surgeon hen had me believing that through the miracle of the far less invasive robotic surgery it would be done on an outpatient basis; it would be more like my inguinal hernia experience. I was even making plans for the night after surgery. The doctor okayed that.
My surgery was scheduled for 7:30 Thursday morning, the first surgery of the day. That’s always the best. The doctor cannot be delayed because of a case before yours. I was supposed to get there at 5:45. Back when I had my gall bladder removed I checked into the hospital the night before, for the early morning surgery. That’s changed. I can see why that saves a fortune in hospital costs but for a night owl like me is not pleasant. But you accept the things you cannot change, and it’s not really a big deal. I got up early and called Juno for a car. I’ve been told they treat their drivers better than Uber or Lyft. I did not give myself a large margin for error as I knew the hospital does that. They say 5:45 but don’t expect every patient to get there when they say. I arrived at the check in at exactly 5:45.
After checking in I spent 15 minutes waiting. As I expected, the call was really for 6 AM and they just wanted to make sure I’d be there. Then I filled out paperwork and then entered the assembly line. The first step was getting out of my clothes and into a gown. Then I talked to a series of people about things like my medical history, who should be called when surgery was over, and who was picking me up from the hospital. These are things I was unaccustomed to. My parents were alive and with me for all my previous hospitalizations. Now I don’t have natural people to take care of these things. My sister Alison lives not that far away, New Paltz and was the obvious choice, but she was in California. My other sister Sue lives in Texas. I ended up going with Allison, even though that confuses everyone who takes my info as I have to say, that’s with two Ls and isn’t my sister. This is the very things I was worried about, not the actual surgery.
I also spoke the surgeon, a surgical resident, the anesthesiologist, and anesthesiologist resident and nurses. Just about everyone was wonderful. I found that one of the nurses shares my apple allergy and she explained something to me I never knew. I had heard that apple allergies were really ragweed allergies, there was a similar antigen in apples and ragweed. What she told me was that it not something from the apples at all. The apples collect pollen from the air. I’m reacting to actual ragweed pollen when my mouth swells from eating apples. Those proteins are broken down when processed which is why she and I can drink apple juice and eat apple pie.
I write that and get totally involved in the conversation. I enjoyed my time talking to these people. That’s what we had conversations. Even though everyone is so busy they all treated me a person and told me they appreciated my good spirits. I was built to function well in medical environments, must more so than the real world.
I was put under general anesthesia, not a local like I had for the inguinal hernias. I wasn’t sure about that till fairly late in the process. It’s not like I was going to say, “never mind I don’t want my hernias repaired.” I knew it was a possibility. My last memory is being on the operating table and being told I was about to be put under. There was no counting backward from 100 or if there was I forgot it. If I lost any memory there it was minimal.
The next thing I knew I was in the recovery room. The surgery went on a lot longer than they planned, four hours. Once he was inside me the surgeon discovered three more hernias, for a total of eight. He said it wasn’t complicated but there was a lot of work. It was pretty late in the day, I think 4 PM until I was awake. So much for outpatient surgery and going home. I was in the hospital for the night and was not too disappointed with that. I knew there was a good chance.
Once I was up in my room I could feel that the recovery would be like from the major surgeries not the hernias. I could barely move more torso. I could not shift myself in the bed. There was a lot of pain from the incisions. I thought I’d have three, but as they had to work over such a large area there were five. It’s not that different than getting shot five time in the gut. They hurt. When I got into position where I could see my stomach I was surprised to find no bandages. I’m so far behind the times. There were no stitches. There were no stapled. Everything was glued shut so I could see the incisions. It didn’t look so bad. I would have taken a picture but I couldn’t figure out how I could do that without showing more than I wanted to as I wasn’t wearing pants. I will take a picture today and post it on Facebook. The most notable thing was that lump that had been on my belly for all those years as gone. There was an unexplained blue line. It looked like stitching but made no sense. I asked one of the surgical residents and he or she told me that was for making measurements cutting the mesh.
I think that’s enough for my first blog, I’ll write about the hospital stay tomorrow. There will be as much about my interactions with people as medicine. When you’re in the hospital you depend on the staff. The most important advice I give any patient is be nice to the staff and treat them like individuals. Learn their names. Praise them when they do well. Be funny. It will make your experience more pleasant.
Wise Madness 